


Happy Holidays

by ImaniJoain



Series: Unlikely Singularities [37]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Christmas, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:08:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21944116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImaniJoain/pseuds/ImaniJoain
Summary: After ending the threat of the Infinity Stones, the team deserve to celebrate the holidays with their loved ones. Family, friends, and, of course, kisses under the mistletoe.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/OC Evelyn Vivas
Series: Unlikely Singularities [37]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/727278
Comments: 11
Kudos: 36





	Happy Holidays

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas, AO3! Thanks for reading, and have a safe and happy holiday!

**December 24, 2017**

Moonlight filtered through scattered clouds and the surrounding barren trees to wash across the bed in a cold, blue rectangle. It turned the fluffy white blanket and white walls into a winter scene that matched the weather outside. Barnes watched the shifting patterns drift across his legs as a storm front rolled in, and slowly the warmer glow from the wood-burning stove took over illuminating the little cabin.

Not so many years ago, he had been out in the cold, standing in the snow, killing under the washed out colors of night. Steve had brought him in, pulled him inside his own group of friends and given him security of body and mind. A purpose. Barnes had thought it was the best he would ever have. He was satisfied with that. A life he chose with walls to separate him from what he had been: the killer outside. He hadn’t realized that simply having control of himself wasn’t enough. He might have never known he was missing something – or what that lost piece could be, if not for Evelyn. A heat. A light to warm him.

“Ouch _!_ _Más caliente que el infierno_.” Her voice was sharp and irritated, floating up from the first floor.

Barnes sat up straighter in bed so he could look over the loft railing and down to the living area. Evelyn was kneeling in front of the open wood burning stove, sucking on her wrist.

“Everything okay down there?”

“Fine.” She dropped her arm and scowled at the stove. “Just having a disagreement with the fire.”

“Want help?” He was already standing, ducking until he was sure he wouldn’t hit his head on the sharp slope of the roof.

“That would be admitting defeat, James. Now do your job and let me do mine.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He raised his hands in defense, although she had not even looked up at him. It had taken Barnes only a few minutes to make the bed with the additional blankets she had insisted on given the approaching cold front. Evelyn would probably push them all off during the night, but her new therapy emphasized making an effort to overcome some of her triggers. Privately, he thought Braithewaite had made a mistake in choosing the blanket thing to work on first. It pre-dated her abduction by HYDRA, and Evelyn’s sleep was precious enough that he didn’t feel she should risk waking herself when she already had a work around. While her fleece pajamas weren’t very sexy, they were kind of cute. Combined with a bed-partner that ran a little hot – and Barnes was always willing to help keep Evelyn tucked tight against him – and she rarely had issues with her sleeping temperature anymore.

 _Couldn’t Braithewaite have sta_ _rted with socks? It’_ _s_ _fucking fifteen degrees outside and Evelyn can’t stand to wear socks without shoes._ By the time she came to bed her feet would be like ice.

If not the socks, then her continuing fear of needles. It was the strangest part of her phobias; she was cool as a cucumber injecting him with painkillers when he needed them, drawing blood from her patients, or setting up an IV for one of the Avengers, but the mere thought of someone bringing a syringe near her skin could make Evelyn break out in a cold sweat. Aside from needles, high on Barnes’ list of things that he knew would make his brilliant girl feel more normal would be the ability to catch a cab by herself. He would have thought her anxiety about riding in taxis, the back of cars in general, would have taken priority over blankets, but what the hell did he know about trauma? Barnes snorted to himself and leaned his forearms against the railing. He supposed that was why Stark paid Braithewaite the big bucks. To decide if blankets were more important than socks. And to listen to Stark talk.

That was worth a fortune in and of itself.

Evelyn had a good fire going, and she added another log before turning down the dampers to keep it burning low until morning. Barnes watched her rise from her spot on the hearth, all long, graceful limbs and golden hair. It made his throat uncomfortably tight – how beautiful she was. His pants too – despite having just spent an energetic thirty minutes on the couch letting his naked girlfriend ride him at her own pace, followed by an enjoyable twenty minutes in the shower with his face between her legs. The memory of wet, golden skin pressed against his cheeks, his hands full of her perfect ass, and slick, swollen flesh in his mouth accosted him and reminded Barnes that Evelyn always slept longer and more peacefully after a good orgasm or two. Three would surely be even better for her.

He was looking out for her health.

Barnes listened to her, out of sight under the sleeping loft, as she moved through the kitchen. Washing her hands, filling a water bottle to bring upstairs, and microwaving the rice bag he had purchased for her to help keep her feet warm. She was loaded down with everything she needed for bed and her phone when she reappeared at the bottom of the steep loft stairs.

“Sure you don’t want help?” He watched carefully as she leaned one hip against the railing, paying more attention to her typing than to her foot placement.

“ _Abuela_ says Merry Christmas,” she said instead of answering his question. “She hopes we went to Mass and she lit a candle for you.”

“Isn’t she in Puerto Rico? I thought she was looking forward to the vacation. Said something to me about a cabana boy...” Evelyn topped the stairs and Barnes snagged her around the waist, drawing her close so that he could relieve her of the water and hot rice bag. He set them on the nightstand and dipped his nose in behind her ear, breathing in the scent of her damp, loose hair and smiling when she smiled. “Or maybe it was cabana _boys_...”

“Shame on you, James. _Abuela_ is a devout Catholic. Of course she went to Mass after she debauched some impressionable young men. Confession is good for the soul.”

“Is it?”

“Mm. So years of catechism have lead me to believe.” She sent a response. Barnes only caught sight of the words ‘ _white Christmas_ ’ before she locked the screen and tossed her phone on the bed. Under the full attention of her honey gaze he felt his chest swelling again. Over the months, the sensation had become less anxiety inducing and more expansive, freeing. A heat that only she made him feel.

“You may not remember it,” she continued, tucking her chilly fingers under the hem of his thermal shirt to prickle up his spine, “but I feel certain that young James Barnes was told the same thing. I am less certain about how often he actually made it to church.”

“You find time for the important things in life,” he murmured into her neck. She smelled like cinnamon and chocolate. And, underneath that, like him. His soap where she had rubbed against him in the shower. His aftershave where he had kissed her breathless. Him. All mixed up with her.

“Important things? Like dragging that poor Rogers boy all over town, risking his health and corrupting him with the attentions of good-time hussies and hard liquor?”

“Hm. My memory is foggy. It might have been hard hussies and good-time liquor.”

“James Buchannan Barnes. You’re making the sweet baby angels weep.”

Barnes leaned away from her, doing his best to scowl when he wanted nothing more than to lick at her lips and hold her closer. “If I didn’t know better, I would think you were trying to impersonate a nun with a ruler warmed up and at the ready.”

“Familiar with that scenario, are you?” She raised a knowing eyebrow.

“Nah.” He gave in and swiped his tongue across her mouth, tasting her toothpaste and heat. She tried to follow him when he pulled away, and that pressure in his chest got bigger. “I never got caught.”

“Hm.” In their bare feet, Evelyn was a good three inches shorter than him. Her soft lips brushed against his chin, then his neck, chasing his Adam’s apple as he swallowed. “Would you like to be?”

His breath hitched. He imagined Evelyn standing over him, demanding penance. He very much doubted anything she would do with him at her mercy would be considered punishment. The opposite. Anything Evelyn had ever done to him – could ever do, was a consecration.

“There’s an idea,” he murmured against her temple. He sank his flesh hand into her hair, lifting the damp strands off of the back of her neck and using his grip to angle her head the way he wanted it. “Sounds like I would end up sinning all over again, though.”

“It’s a vicious cycle,” she agreed, her breath hitching when his lips found the silvery scar on the side of her throat. Her fingers tightened on the valley of his spine, blunt nails not hurting him, but reminding him of the strength in her fingers and hands. The skill there. “ _C_ _ariño.”_

She used that word often enough with him that his useless brain did not have to struggle through a translation. _Darling_. Her darling. His heart thudded heavy and hard behind his ribs. His lungs, made perfectly efficient by the serum, stuttered. He pulled her tighter against his chest, wrapping his metal arm low around her waist to avoid her hair. Outside, the night had grown colder and the clouds thicker. Snow was falling again, sharp against the bleak darkness of the forest. Behind him, the fire was warm, the cabin quiet and comfortable. The woman in his arms willingly gave around him, holding him as he held her, surrounding him with sweet scents and a peace he hadn’t known existed. One he hadn’t known he had forgotten.

The view out the window blurred, and he closed his eyes against it.

“I have a confession to make,” he murmured, hoping she would mistake the catch in his voice for something else.

“ _Se me hace agua la boca_ _.”_ One of her hands drifted down, skirting under the waistband of his sleep pants. His muscles tightened reflexively and she made a humming noise that went straight to his cock. “Go on.”

“I love you.”

She nipped at the muscle of his neck and squeezed his ass, the tips of her fingers digging into the cleft and making his hips jerk forward. “I love you too.”

For the briefest moment, Barnes thought he had been put back into the Chair. His head buzzed - his thoughts scattered. They were too flimsy for him to gather.

It couldn’t be the Chair. He didn’t hurt. Nothing hurt. He was warm and comfortable and still pleasantly full of hot cider and oyster stew and cookies. He was clean and softly dressed and couldn’t smell disinfectant powder or sterile gloves or the lingering ozone of electricity. He could not taste the silicone of a mouth guard or the metallic syrup of his own blood. There was only cinnamon and buttery-chocolate. Sandalwood aftershave and wood smoke. Evelyn on his tongue.

She hadn’t noticed his immobility, or had taken it for indecision, because she was speaking still.

 _“_...save that for another time. Maybe after you open your presents.” Her voice dropped to a purr, “I have one for you to open here, before we go over to the main building. You can even have it tonight, if you are very, very good.”

“You love me?”

Evelyn tried to lean back, and after a moment he remembered to relax his arms so she could move. One side of her mouth was curled up into a half-smile. Whiskey colored hair was soft around her face and flowed down past her shoulders in a cascade of gold that he was certain he could get drunk on.

“ Yes, James. I love you.”

“Since wh….you don’t seem at all surprised.” _Or nervous_ _,_ his mind supplied. He had been confused about his own feelings since September – torn between ignoring the sudden, overwhelming certainty that he couldn’t live without Evelyn and begging her to marry him, to move in with him, to never, ever consider leaving him. She did not appear to be anything other than amused. More than a little aroused. Her smirk softened into a smile, small but sincere. _Affection_ _,_ he realized. _Love_ _,_ a long-forgotten corner of his brain suggested.

“You talk in your sleep sometimes. Not often,” she assured him. Barnes was not particularly assured. Most of the dreams he could remember in the morning were either inappropriate – Evelyn kneeling before him, her plump, raspberry lips stretched wide, her braid wrapped around his fist as he – or nightmares. Steve, frozen in a chunk of ice. Zola, walking around him and smiling, ordering the Winter Soldier to break the Captain out so that he, too, could find a place with HYDRA.

Evelyn continued. “Most of the time, it’s nonsense. Things about mud in your boots or buying cough syrup.” Barnes stiffened. That wasn’t nonsense. Those were memories, dreams he half-remembered and knew to have actually happened. “And in other languages, too.” She squeezed his ass again and licked her lower lip. “The last time you woke up from a French dream worked out very well for me. Maybe you weren’t telling the whole truth about those Parisian ladies, hm?”

She studied his face, and he wanted to smile. He wanted to show her that he loved her, was happy – overjoyed – that she might even think she loved him but he was still stunned. Shocked. Afraid.What did you say to her? How can she lie next to you? When will she hear something that scares her away? Her smile fell. She pulled her hand from his pants to press against his back again.

“You said it for the first time in September,” she said quietly. “At first I didn’t want to presume...but then...I wanted you to feel comfortable telling me yourself. Knowingly. I couldn’t help but hear, but I...am beginning to think I made the wrong call. I’m sorry. James, I am so sorry. I should have respected your privacy and told you right away that-”

“No. That’s not...no.” He let out a shaky breath, stirring the hair at the side of her face. Her brows were pinched together in a controlled expression of anxiety that he had not seen on her in months. He didn’t like it. Barnes used his metal fingers to sooth e the wrinkle on her forehead. “You weren’t...I didn’t scare you?”

She blinked. “I’m not exactly the picture of psychological health, but I do not find love to be all that frightening. Not from you,” she finished softly.

“I meant...the, the other stuff. The dream stuff. I, sometimes, I – Did I say anything about the assassinations? The murders? I didn’t want you to hear, to know wha _t I-”_

“James.” She pulled her hands away from his skin, leaving him bereft for a moment before she cupped his face . “I have never, not even once, been frightened or disgusted by you. I read the files. I know what HYDRA did. The only thing that frightens me is the thought that they could ever take you again. The only thought that disgusts me is what you had to suffer while you were their prisoner. I love you. I have known I loved you since the day you tried to order me out of my own office.”

“I didn’t try,” he corrected her without thinking. “I succeeded.”

She puffed out a disbelieving burst of air. “Yes,” her voice was flat, “you succeeded. _A pesar de ti mismo_ _.”_

Slowly, his worry started to ease in the face of her certainty. “That was...three months ago. You’ve known you loved me for three months and didn’t say anything?” The inkling that he should feel hurt tried to surface, but she stopped it cold with a raised eyebrow. Never let it be said that Bucky Barnes didn’t know when to back down. “Fair enough.”

“Yes. It is. Perfectly fair. Do we need to argue about this more? Perhaps you would like to explain to me how I do not know how I feel, or the consequences of my feelings? Or would you like to generously sacrifice this relationship for my own safety? Well-being? Future happiness? Some other idiot reason I haven’t thought of yet? Be careful here, James,” she warned him, “if you become a martyr, Steve will have to come up with a new public image.”

“No, ma’am.”

“Good. Now get into bed.” She turned her back on him, slipped under the blankets he knew she hated, and began braiding her hair.

Barnes let his eyes travel over the full, fleece-covered swells of her breasts, the pale golden skin of her neck. He traced his gaze across the lush raspberry of her lower lip. When he met her eyes, the stiffness in his limbs eased. The hollow, frightened echo inside his own head quieted, then fell silent. She loved him. Barnes knew he didn’t deserve it. He knew it with every fiber of his being, in every dark, bloody corner of his soul he knew that Evelyn Vivas was too good for him and that he could never deserve her.

Barnes was not a good person. Some days, rarely now but they still surfaced occasionally, he wasn’t sure he was a person at all. But if fierce, wickedly intelligent Evelyn wanted to love him, he could not deny her. He would take that up in both hands and run – never looking back. The last of his anxiety released. He hadn’t known he could feel so free. With a hand that only trembled a little, he passed her a hair elastic from the nightstand, but still hesitated to climb into bed.

One dark, imperious eyebrow arched in expectation. “What’s the matter, _cariño?_ Is there something else you should be doing? Don’t tell me you suddenly need to do another perimeter check? Shine your boots? Make a snack?”

He could never do enough to earn the coveted spot in Evelyn’s heart and beside her warm body. But he would fucking _castrate_ , with no remorse, anyone else who considered filling that position.

His lips curled into a smile, and he tried to convey with his eyes the heat pooling in his chest, slipping down low in his belly and _wanting_.

“I could eat.”

_Se me hace agua la boca –_ _it makes my mouth water_

 _A pesar de ti mismo –_ _In spite of yourself_


End file.
